Tag: Soundcloud

I finally recorded the music for the chapter in “Inside The Forbidden Outside”. Sometimes the music feels more right than others. I’ve gone through many changes in my music writing the past few years as I’ve experimented with sound and recording layers instead of just piano. It has been a learning process. It isn’t easy to lay one improv layer over an improv and then adding one or two more on top of that. I don’t know anything about playing other instruments such as flute or strings to know how it feels when you play them. It might not be appropriate to that instrument. It is also next to impossible to make a flute breathe when it is played on a keyboard. So it is a learning experience.

I don’t play blues or jazz or other genres I enjoy listening to. I consider myself a classical musician who no longer plays the classics, but the training is there. So I play “myself.” and how I hear the music that comes out of my fingers. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do.

At SoundCloud I have a playlist of just the music recorded for the book. At this time there are 25 pieces. There is other music there as well. I am also writing chapter 21. Starting over last January on a complete rewrite has been daunting but I’m now about 58,000 words into it.

When this is done it needs a story editor, to make sure it’s all connected and a line editor. Then I can set a publishing date and work like hell on promotion. The sequel, “Open the Cage and Fly” is already in promotional story planning because it covers from 2016 through Jamie ‘s reentry into the world. He has already lived a couple of those years.

The story of being in prison is only half of the story. How he survives is also important. I have a catch up post to do on him yet because a lot has happened this past year I haven’t written about because of all the rest of the work that needs doing.

If you subscribed to the newsletter thank you so much. It’s the only way to let people know what is going on who don’t follow me regularly. It is so important to its success. Having a mailing list opens doors that otherwise wouldn’t give me the time of day. I’m so late at getting the next ITFO News out simply because I only have one set of hands. But there will be one out soon that brings it all up today plus a little extra. So those who have subscribed thank you very much.

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I Do So Love Living, Don’t You?

How beautiful is your jigsaw puzzle of life? I have been thinking about my life and everything I’ve done. Hopefully I have gained wisdom through the years to use for my future. Being young is wonderful. There is so much life ahead.

Young people are full of energy, and hopefully have the desire to “be” someone, whatever theit talents are. From the age of seven I knew I wanted to make music, and the piano was going to be a major part of my life. When I was ten, I knew I was going to teach music. There was no doubt. I also wanted to play the most beautiful music in the world. I’m not finished striving for that. There is still a lot to learn and a lot of life to live.

I have recently been spending my time connecting my piano music to my writing. Both evolved together and much of the music is tied to not only book chapters but to poetry. They will be promoted together. I have searched to find ways to do that. I have different ways than the average author because I am a musician.

Many people get depressed when they age. The decade markers of 30-40-50-60 and up, can be hard because it’s easy to dwell on losing youth – on the outside. But it’s up to you if you lose the ability to be young on the inside. I have never tried to “pass” for someone younger. I have never shaved years. I have earned every single year, I’m not going to pretend I haven’t lived them.

For so long everything has been focused on the youth generation, but all youth gets older. They disappear into the AARP magazine pages. Old musicians are called dinosaurs, but this one isn’t going quietly into the sunset.

Being older, I have wisdom and life experiences youth don’t have. Twenty years from now will I look back on all of this and have good memories. Will I be successful? Will this help Jamie when he gets of prison.

I look at my life like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The border is together. It took a long time to begin to understand myself. Now I’m connecting the pieces inside and fitting them together. It’s up to me how beautiful it is. Every year of life has meaning. Some years are harder than others, but all the puzzles pieces affect how you fit future pieces together.

We all need to live as though today is the last day of our life and begin something we have wanted to do, or finish something already started. This is why I’m working so hard. I do it because I love it and I’m having fun. I love living. You don’t need to be pushed or develope discipline when you have a passion for living.

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I have a new page at a website you can go to directly called ReverbNation. Clickbecome a fan. You can also go there through the link at Skunk Radio. I have had so much fun taking this to the next level. I’ve been blogging for three years and adding music to many posts but this month is the first time online that I have attempted to cross over onto the commercial side. My earlier years as a professional player these options weren’t there. If you didn’t have a record deal it didn’t matter how good you were. I was still singing then but my vocals can’t survive a couple hours of singing anymore.

I will be connected to other sites in the near future. It’s a big market out there. This will also help me get an agent for the right gigs which will create book sales through live gigs. A girl’s gotta eat and pay for travel. Okay, so I’m not exactly a “girl” but musicians get better with age! It has been exciting putting this together. I had retired. I thought live gigs were in my past. When my pages are complete with a new head shot and video I’ll be contacting agents. Life has a way of kicking us in the pants when we aren’t looking, but it’s up to us if we grab the brass ring and run with it.

I absolutely love finding new people who like the music I record. I think it’s important to never stop dreaming. If we reach an age where we stop ourselves from believing we can live life like we’re young, our brain dries up and blows away.

It isn’t easy to write, research, promote, compose and record, handle 4 facebook pages, 2 blogs, a newsletter and also help your mother pack up her house and not drop a plate you’re spinning in the air. My entire body hurts from packing, because although I’m young inside, my body is 63 and has been battered around by life.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate those who have gone to my sites, played my music, shared it and also went to SRL twitter page and simply tweeted my name to them. You still can. They have additional ways they help those who have a following. I’m trying to build one. Online stats will make or break me.

I will soon be putting out a digital album (before the one coming out when the book is ready.) My music is a soundtrack. (Sound Cloud) We have them for movies. Why not a book? Ideally play it when you read the book and feel the emotion, or play it when you want to relax or go to sleep. The music below was supposed to go with the book chapter by the same name, The Waking Hour, that was posted last month. I recorded the music after I wrote the chapter, but they have the same picture of the sleeping baby.

I’m also thinking of putting my music into music boxes to sell that look like a baby grand piano. I have a few that would be nice for children. It’s just an idea right now. When ideas come in your head it is for a reason. We have to see, and visualize where we want to go or our brain can’t figure out how to make it happen. I do so love living, don’t you?

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My new featured page at Skunk Radio Live has been a big boost. I found out recently they can also promote my book “Inside The Forbidden Outside” when Its done. That will reach people my mailing list doesn’t. I hope you will join my mailing list to find out how this is coming together.

I made many changes from the first draft of the book. (earlier chapters were posted last year) Hopefully good changes. I’m not trying to write it fast just to get it out there, but rather – write the best I can. It’s a craft, like learning to play the piano. I created a different twist to the second half of the story. It’s still non-fiction; just presented differently. I’m also planning to spend a few weeks of October in Texas and go to Allred Unit, the prison Jamie is housed so we can talk through several visits and clear up details I need.

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This music. was originally posted on my other blog Watch and Whirl You can also find it below at Sound Cloud. I wrote this during the Fall as I looked out the window watching the wind blow the leaves from the trees. Swirling around and gently falling to the ground, battered and torn with the color dying out of them.

This is for every person who has been abused by our injustice system. Every life who has been taken away. Every one caught up in the quest for mass incarceration. Every family who has been destroyed. Every child who has lost their parent. Every parent who has lost their child. I actually wrote a different post for this music because it makes me angry when people – or corporations – who profess to care about our country but who really do everything they can to line their own pockets and care nothing about the people they destroy. Enough said. The information is there for you to find if you choose to find it instead of listening to the choir sing to the choir. I will continue to try to make a difference and do what I can to help those I can.

This makes me so emotional. I get frustrated because I want to change things and I don’t know how or I don’t think it is enough. Prison has needlessly destroyed so many people that should not have been destroyed. Depression in prison for those who are caught in an unbelievably cruel and inhumane box is devastating. It needs to change. Massive prison reform is needed. Profit should not be the number one focus of the prison industrial corporations. There are bad people inside, but the majority are not. We need to help the ones who need to be let go. Prisoner mental health should not be destroyed. Reintegration into society is extremely difficult because it creates a fear to be near people.https://mynameisjamiedotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/autumn.mp3

THE FALLEN by Sonni Quick. copyright 2015

If you have heard my music before, you know I do not “compose” the music I record. There is no plan. It is not written down. I don’t think about it. I just play it. My fingers play what I feel. Everything is improvised. I couldn’t play it again. My fingers have a mind of their own. It is a language. When you speak, do you think about each word and put a sentence together before you speak it? Do you write down each word so you know what you said? Can you just make up sentence after sentence because you know the language? Of course you can. Most people, when they learn an instrument, they learn through method books that teach them how to read the notes and play it. Just like we learn the alphabet and learn how to make words. We learn to improvise with those words and it becomes a language that conveys thoughts and emotions. But most music teachers that are hired only teach their students how to play the written notes written by other people. They don’t learn how to play those notes as a language that conveys how they feel or how they think.

The piano changed from being an instrument to play, to an instrument that understood what I was feeling and I crawled inside it. I became a bystander and separated myself from the act of playing the piano and instead listened to the music as it played itself. What you hear today I can do for hours going up and down the piano keys playing the emotions I feel. If I try to manipulate it, it doesn’t work. My fingers know the piano keys, like an artist knows his paints and a dancer feels the music and his body know what it can do. It’s a wonderful feeling. I also know I haven’t reached the end. I’ve just begun.

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Posts From My blog: Watch and Whirl: Sonni Quick

I love myself I think I’m grand I go to the movies and I hold my hand. I put my arm around my waist and when I’m fresh I slap my face! A little ditty my mother taught me that my grandmother taught her . <<< >>> This was an early blog post 4 […]

DANCE WITH THE DEVIL Lurking in back of my eyes Tasting the smells, seeing the ghosts No matter how often I tried Which memories shame me the most It reminds me of where I’ve been And how many miles I’ve gone I tied it up in a garbage bag And kept on walking alone […]

Right now I’m sitting at the Amtrak station at Ft Lauderdale, FL. I love riding the train, up or down the coast every month. I should already be on the train, the 8:50 AM train heading up the coast, but my ride to the station got me here 5 minutes late and I watched the […]

This is my newest music video. I hope you enjoy it. This music piece has quickly become one of my fastest rising improvisations currently playing on 3 streaming sites, as well as a variety of other social media sites. When someone likes my music it is the best feeling for me. My recordings are […]

Happy New Years – I think. I mean, that is what we’re supposed to say, isn’t it? We say it every year, until the illusion passes and we go back to work and the kids go back to school, broken toys in the corner of their room.

How to find me everywhere

This has been a year of writing music - which can be found on either of my blogs, mynameisjamie.net and watchandwhirl.com. and at the website soundcloud.com/sonni-quick/set/stories-without-words
There are other music websites listed if you'd like to follow my music and know when a new piece has been added.
also been a year of writing and learning how to write - the book I am writing "Inside The Forbidden Outside" , the story of Jamie Cummings and his life from juvenile detention to prison. I also publish a monthly newsletter - ITFO - on happenings inside the prison industry. There are ways to subscribe on the blog and at facebook at jamielifeinprison